


When Love Comes Around, You'll Know

by sweeterthankarma



Category: The Bold Type
Genre: Adena is soft and in love, F/F, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 12:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16367882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeterthankarma/pseuds/sweeterthankarma
Summary: Adena loves Kat. She knows this. It’s undeniable when she’ll wake up in the morning with both her phone and her mug of coffee in hand, black ringlet curls swaying as the woman exudes far more energy than Adena could ever muster at seven AM— even if she’d chugged triple the amount of coffee Kat had in her mug.Adena loves her so much.





	When Love Comes Around, You'll Know

Adena loves Kat. She knows this. It’s undeniable when she’ll wake up in the morning with both her phone and her mug of coffee in hand, black ringlet curls swaying as the woman exudes far more energy than Adena could ever muster at seven AM —  even if she’d chugged triple the amount of coffee Kat had in her mug. 

Adena loves her so much.

It’s obvious when Kat will leave a voicemail, when she’ll say, voice muffled but still clear, the only thing Adena hears amidst the loud background of sound that is the Upper East Side as she holds her phone flush to her ear: “hey babe, I just called to say hi, I’ll see you later, love you.”

Her heart will beat hard at the sound and she wants to say it back a thousand times, she wants to draw the words on Kat’s skin, looped cursive and lipstick stains and accidental teeth marks on her soft skin that neither of them mind but only relish. It’s all in time with the way she’ll bring Adena easily to the edge with a fierce push of her fingers later on that night, knowing exactly what she needs and giving her it, unrelenting, taking her pleasure and running with it. Kat is everything, her body and her soul and her words and her heart, and Adena wants to paint her orgasm on a canvas and hang it up on the wall of their kitchen because that’s something palpable at least, something mysterious but visible enough to show just how much she feels when she sees her lover do something as simple as her walk into the room, into  _ their _ room.

But if she’s being honest, Adena doesn’t even think that’s enough, not really. Paint and wood and cut magazine photos and letters formed into a true sentence of passion, that’s not nearly enough to encompass all that Kat Edison is, or enough to prove how much Adena’s heart lifts every time her girlfriend stands in the back of one of her galleries, observing, phone turned off and tucked away. She never photographs anything; rather, she just takes it in, knowing it’s the work of her love and it deserves more than a pixelated photo to exist in another realm, free of distraction. The glimmering, dimly lit hall is enough for both of them, and the critics are already here anyways’ Adena is standing in a fountain of compliments.

    “Okay, I know this one’s about me,” Kat says once she has Adena to herself, escaped from the crowds for a few moments. She points to a painting that’s clearly  _ not  _ about her, and she laughs.

    “My love, they’re all for you,” Adena replies after slinging her arm tight around Kat’s waist and pulling her close. Her lips brush against Kat’s temple, cheek pressing against her hair, and she sighs. 

    “No, they’re not,” Kat replies softly. Her voice is always hushed in the presence of art, like it’s a living breathing thing that’s deserving of her utmost respect — because maybe it is.

    “They are,” Adena affirms, pulling away and taking Kat close in her arms. “Her fingers come up to string around her necklace, then linger against her polka dot collar, and Kat lets her maneuver her hands as she pleases. 

    “You look so beautiful tonight,” she says distractedly, and then continues her train of thought. “Kat, in some way, somehow, these all relate you. Can’t you see that? But still, they cannot even begin to encompass all that you are, all that you’ve given me, and all that you will be.”

Kat doesn’t know how to respond to that —  she doesn’t think she’s good at all this sappy stuff, not nearly as much as Adena is, even though she’s as invested as she’s ever been and likely as much as she’ll ever be, because she really can’t imagine a future without Adena El-Amin by her side — and so she just kisses her, warm and almost lazily and just enough to make her whine for more when she pulls away.

    “You’re too good to me,” she sighs. Adena just smiles.

    “You know, I love it here, but I can’t wait to go home,” Kat says then, as nonchalantly as she can, but her eyes give her away. They glint in the haze of gold flickering off the nearest canvas, daring and beautiful, and she twists her mussed collar , Adena’s doing, back into position as she walks away, moving on to admire the next piece down the line. 

Adena collects herself. Kat always leaves her stunned.

It’s a constant thing, really, this surprise that Kat always brings into her life. She’s taken aback when Kat buys a brand new comforter for their bed, along with new pillows, on a Wednesday night just because she feels like it. She’s surprised when she buys picture frames too, and comes home to the smell of fesenjoon, a bit burned but still a solid effort from her inexperienced chef of a girlfriend, who lays on the floor with her chin in the palm of her hand as she examines multiple photos laid out on the floor. She holds up one of them by way of greeting — a sun-glared snapshot of one of their first real dates as an official couple, the two of them  kissing on the observation deck of the Empire State Building — and asks , “hey babe, do you think this picture is too cheesy to frame?”

Adena doesn’t think anything Kat does is too cheesy, especially when she does it with so much affection and intensity. She’s watched Kat go from guarded to vulnerable, from an “out and proud hetero” (although she was never really convincing) to a self-branded, brazen bisexual woman, and she’s always been a bit of an insomniac, but now Adena stays awake at night out of happiness alone, merely reflecting on the journey she’s lucky enough to be apart of with the woman she’s lucky enough to love.

Adena loves Kat so much; on some days, it’s the only truth she’s able to swallow. When the sky is dark and her identity is a rain cloud to both herself and the people who see her and walk faster despite not even knowing her, it’s undeniable that Kat’s love carries her home and reminds her why she’s always been unapologetic. No one knows her as well as she knows herself, but Kat comes pretty damn close, and she makes her better just by being around. For Adena, nothing’s ever been so simple. Her life is a tangle of complexities and struggles and loopholes, but Kat is a clear breath of honesty, of integrity, of everything Adena has ever needed.

Every night, the moonlight flickers through the shades, mixed with the chaotic shine of the city lights that never dull, even when it’s overcast and rainy, always casting visibility onto the rainbow and Islamic flags that hang above their bed— Kat’s most recent purchase of pride for both of them. Adena falls asleep easy, no matter the day she’s had, because there’s nothing to complain about or wish for when her limbs stay intertwined with the woman she loves, and she dreams of the art that she’ll make in the morning, a character study made with acrylic and fabric and ink, for the woman who loves her back.

**Author's Note:**

> I miss these two. Feel free to talk to me about them (and how they deserve so much more than they've gotten so far in canon) in the comments or at my Tumblr @sweeterthankarma.


End file.
